I don't know about you, but Governor Paterson's speech today has me on edge.

At 5:10 this afternoon, Paterson will give a televised briefing on the state's financial situation, which, as we all know, is a mess. This morning's New York Times talks about "huge budget deficits in the years ahead" and "prolonged and deep recession in the state."

We could have seen some of this coming. New York excels at spending too much, and at finding crafty ways to borrow money.

It's obvious that New York will have to take strong steps to address its budget problems. And particularly in this part of the state, those steps will be painful.

A spokesperson told the Times that Paterson will "do more than merely warn of worse times ahead," that he'll "put forth proposals to both get the state's fiscal house in order and ease the burden on New Yorkers."

Even to come up with those proposals will take some doing. Getting New York's dysfunctional legislature to adopt them could take a miracle.

Paterson's address will be just the beginning. And whatever the state does, that won't be the only pain we'll feel. Locally, we still wait for the county executive's plan to deal with her own budget crisis. And it, too, will continue into the years ahead.

Real crises have a way of focusing the attention of the public and the government. But I don't know whether we'll all consider this crisis severe enough to compromise and get things done. We all have our pet interests. Note, for instance, that the City of Rochester and the police union are fighting over overtime pay the union says the city owes the cops. And I admit that the first thing I thought of when I heard about Paterson's speech was: "don't cut the funds for the Paetec building."

This is not a happy time, to say the least.